The Santaroga Barrier Page 13

  Immediately, a sense of warmth and well-being began to seep outward through his body. The cup was pulled away, returned when he moved his mouth toward it.

  Someone laughed, said something that Dasein couldn’t quite catch. It sounded like, “Take a full load.” But that didn’t make sense and he rejected it.

  The hands eased him gently back to the grass. That vacant masculine voice said: “Keep him warm and quiet for awhile. He’s okay.”

  Jenny’s face returned. Her hand stroked his head.

  “Oh, darling,” she said. “I looked at the dock and you were gone. I didn’t see you fall, but I knew. And no one was paying any attention. It took me so long to get there. Oh, your poor head. Such a bruise.”

  Dasein felt the throbbing then as though her words had turned it on—a pulsing ache at the temple and across his ear. A blow like that—shouldn’t I have X-rays? he wondered. How do they know I haven’t a fractured skull … or concussion?

  “Cal says the boat must’ve been tipping away from you as you hit it,” Jenny said. “I don’t think you’ve broken anything.”

  Pain shot through him as she touched the bruise.

  “It’s just a bad bruise.”

  Just a bad bruise! he thought. He was filled with abrupt anger at her. How could they be so casual?

  Still, that feeling of warmth spread out through him, and he thought: Of course I’m all right. I’m young, healthy. I’ll heal. And I have Jenny to protect me. She loves me.

  Something about this train of thought struck him as profoundly wrong then. He blinked. As though that were the creative mechanism, his vision blurred, resolved into flashes of gemlike light, red, orange, yellow, brown, green, violet, blue light with offshooting crystal shards.

  The light resolved into a membranous inward sensation, a perception of perception that reached out through his mind. He saw then strong pulses of his own heart, the tender brain sheathing that rose and fell with the pulse, the damaged area—just a bruise, skull intact.

  Dasein grew aware then why the Santarogans showed so little concern for his injury. They knew the injury through him. If he were like them, he would tell them when he needed help.

  Then why didn’t they try to rescue me until Jenny came? Dasein asked himself. And the answer lay there to wonder at: Because I didn’t cry out for help in my thoughts!

  “You shouldn’t sleep now, I don’t think,” Jenny said.

  She found his left hand, gripped it. “Isn’t there something about not sleeping after a head injury?”

  Dasein stared up at her, seeing the dark wings of her hair disarrayed from rescuing him, the way her eyes seemed to touch him, so intense was her concentration. There was dampness on her lashes and he felt that he might look behind her eyes and find the way to a magic land.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  She pressed a finger against his lips. “I know.”

  I am a Santarogan now, Dasein thought.

  He lay there rolling the thought in his mind, filled by this odd awareness that let him reach out to Jenny even when she released his hand and left him alone there on the grass. There was nothing of telepathy in this awareness. It was more knowledge of mood in those around him. It was a lake in which they all swam. When one disturbed the water, the others knew it.

  My God! What this Jaspers could do for the world! Dasein thought.

  But this thought sent roiling waves through the lake of mutual awareness. There was storm in this thought. It was dangerous. Dasein recoiled from it.

  He remembered then why he had come here and saw the conflict from a new perspective. The people who’d sent him—what did they want?

  Proof, he thought.

  He found he couldn’t focus on what they wanted to prove. It was all tied up with Jersey Hofstedder’s car and the blunt Yankee insularity of these people.

  Jenny’s friends were noticing him now, Dasein saw. They looked at him—directly at him. They spoke to him. And when he felt he wanted to get up and go to the big fire they’d built against the evening chill, strong hands came without bidding and helped him.

  Night fell.

  Dasein found himself seated on a blanket beside Jenny. Someone was playing a guitar in the darkness. Moon colored half the lake, leaving a great black stone of night against one side. Wind-wrinkled water lapped at the stone and he felt that if the blackness could only be moved it would blaze in light to reveal fairyland.

  Jenny snuggled against him, murmured: “You’re feeling better. I know it.”

  He agreed with her silently.

  Torches flamed down by the lake—people securing the boats. Someone handed him a sandwich redolent with Jaspers. He ate, his attention on the torches and the fire—the trees around them gleaming red, grotesque shadows lurching, dove wings of smoke against the moon. Abruptly, Dasein secreted part of his sandwich in a pocket.

  For no reason he could explain, Dasein remembered a time shortly after Jenny had left the school. It had rained. He remembered reaching out his window to feel the rain, seeing the wet sparkle of the lawn beneath a window, like a broken necklace scattered there.

  Abruptly, the wind across the lake shifted, stung his eyes with smoke. He swallowed a mouthful of the smoke and it brought him to an intense awareness of the here and now, Jenny beside him … waiting.

  As he thought about her, she reached up, pulled his lips down on hers. It was a long kiss, full of guitar music, remembered rain and the taste of smoke.

  How can I ever explain this? Dasein wondered. Selador would think me mad.

  Jenny stirred against him at this thought, stroked his neck.

  “Let’s get married soon,” she whispered.

  Why not? Dasein asked himself. I’m a Santarogan now.

  But this thought brought a surge of fear that tightened his chest and made Jenny shiver. She pulled away, stared at him with worry in her eyes.

  “Everything will be all right,” she whispered. “You’ll see.”

  The worry remained in her voice, though. And Dasein sensed menace in the night. The guitarist struck a sour note, fell silent.

  Dasein saw that moonlight had moved into the black area of the lake … and it revealed no fairyland—only more lake, more trees.

  The night was definitely cold now.

  Once more, Jenny pressed her lips to his.

  Dasein knew he still loved her. It was a real thing to which he could cling. But there was no more magic in this night. He felt that he had skirted madness and the thing had left its taint on him.

  When she pulled away, he whispered: “I want to marry you, Jenny. I love you … but … I need time. I need …”

  “I know, darling,” she said. She stroked his cheek. “Take all the time you need.”

  Her voice carried a withdrawing note compounded as she pulled back. Dasein felt the night’s coldness then, the stillness of their companions.

  Abruptly, there was a stirring in the people around them. They began moving toward the truck.

  “It’s time to go back,” Jenny said.

  Back where? Dasein asked himself.

  Jenny stood up, helped him to his feet. He stumbled in a brief spasm of dizziness. Jenny steadied him.

  “Do you want Uncle Larry to look at your head tonight?” she asked.

  Piaget, Dasein thought. That was the back at which he was aimed. Piaget. They would continue their trade of truths. The Jaspers change was forcing it.

  “I’ll see him in the morning,” Dasein said.

  “Not tonight?”

  In my own sweet time, Dasien thought. And he said: “Not tonight.”

  The answer seemed to trouble Jenny. She sat barely touching him on the ride back to town.

  6

  When they were gone, leaving Dasein standing alone behind his truck in the Inn yard, he stared up at the darkness of the sky, lost in thought. Jenny’s good-night kiss—strained, trembling—still tingled on his lips. There was a smell of exhaust gases and oil in the air. From somewhere
inside the building came the faint sound of music—a radio. The gravel of the driveway felt hard and immediate under his feet.

  Slowly, Dasein brought his right hand from his pocket, opened it to stare at the small ball of matter there—an object indistinctly seen in the light from the Inn sign. Now, there was a strong smell of Jaspers around him.

  Dasein studied the object in his hand—a compressed ball of bread, cheese and ham, a bit of one of the sandwiches from the picnic.

  Did they know I secreted this? he wondered.

  He debated going inside and changing his clothes. The pants and shirt he’d worn on the picnic, garments that had been soaked and allowed to dry on him, felt wrinkled and twisted against his body.

  Dasein felt that his mind wandered around this decision: to change or not to change, that was the question. The object in his hand was more immediate, though. Selador. Yes, Selador had to get this and examine it.

  I’m not thinking clearly, Dasein told himself.

  He felt torn between extremes, between decisions of enormous moment. The head injury? he wondered. But he trusted the Jaspers-induced insight that told him the injury wasn’t serious. Still … decisions …

  With intense concentration, Dasein forced himself to get into his truck. He leaned against the steering wheel, put the compressed ball of the Jaspers sandwich on the seat beside him. There was warm wetness at his seat and he pulled his wallet from his hip pocket, felt the water trapped in it. The wallet went beside the bit of sandwich.

  Now, Dasein told himself. Now, I will go.

  But it was several minutes before he could muster the strength of decision to start the motor and pull out of the parking area and onto the road toward Porterville. He drove slowly, conscious of the blocking dullness inhibiting his motions.

  The headlights picked out a wedge of flowing roadway and bordering trees—yellow center line, guard rails, driveways. Dasein opened his window, leaned out into the wind trying to clear his head. Now, he was on the winding road up out of the valley and the slowness of his mind grew like a deadly weight.

  Headlights came toward him, passed.

  Dark mass of rock beside the road—yellow center lines, twisting scars of repair lines on the paving … stars overhead … He came at last to the notch that led out through the black skeletons of burned trees.

  Dasein felt something was drawing him back, ordering him to turn around and return to Santaroga. He fought it. Selador had to get that bit of food and analyze it. Duty. Promises. Had to get out to Porterville.

  Somewhere in his mind, Dasein sensed a looming black shape, anonymous, terrifying. It studied him.

  With an inner snapping sensation, Dasein felt his mind clear. The thing was so abrupt he almost lost control of the wheel, swerved across the center line and back, tires squealing.

  The road, the night, the steering wheel, his foot on the accelerator—all slammed against his senses with a confused immediacy. Dasein hit the brakes, slowed almost to a crawl. Every nerve end yammered at him. His head whirled. Dasein clung to the wheel, concentrated on steering. Slowly, his senses sorted themselves out. He took a deep, trembling breath.

  Drug reaction, he told himself. Have to tell Selador.

  Porterville was the same dull street he had remembered—cars parked at the tavern, the single light beating down on the darkened gas station.

  Dasein pulled to a stop beside the telephone booth, remembering the deputies who’d questioned him there, mistaking him for a Santarogan. Had they been premature? he wondered.

  He gave the operator Selador’s number, waited impatiently, tapping his finger against the wall. A faint and reedy woman’s voice came on the line—“Selador residence.”

  Dasein leaned into the phone. “This is Gilbert Dasein. Let me speak to Dr. Selador.”

  “I’m sorry. The Seladors are out for the evening. Is there a message?”

  “Damn!” Dasein stared at the phone. He felt an irrational anger at Selador. It took a conscious effort of logic for Dasein to tell himself Selador had no real reason to hang around the telephone. Life went on its normal way back in Berkeley.

  “Is there a message, sir?” the reedy voice repeated.

  “Tell him Gilbert Dasein called,” Dasein said. “Tell him I’m sending him a package for chemical analysis.”

  “A package for chemical analysis. Yes sir. Is that all?”

  “That’s all.”

  Dasein replaced the receiver on its hook with a feeling of reluctance. He felt abandoned suddenly—alone up here with no one outside really caring whether he lived or died.

  Why not chuck them all? he asked himself. Why not marry Jenny, tell the rest of the world to go to hell?

  It was an intensely inviting prospect. He could feel himself sinking into quiet security back in the valley. Santaroga beckoned to him with that security. It was safe there.

  That very sense of safety, though, was edged with danger. Dasein sensed it … a lurking something in the outer darkness. He shook his head, annoyed at the tricks his mind was playing. The vapors, again!

  He returned to the truck, found a jar in the back where he’d kept a store of matches. He dumped out the matches, put in the remains of the sandwich, sealed the jar, packaged it with the remnants of a cardboard grocery box and a scrap of wrapping paper, tied the whole thing with a length of fishline and addressed it to Selador. When it was done, he wrote a covering letter on a page from his notebook, listed his reactions there painstakingly—the drug effect, the accident at the lake and his own impressions of the group … the wall they threw up to keep him at a distance … Jenny’s terror …

  It all went into the letter.

  The effort of recalling the incidents made his head ache where he’d hit the edge of the boat. He found an envelope in his case, addressed the letter and sealed it.

  With a sense of satisfaction, Dasein started up the truck, found a dark side street and parked. He locked the cab, climbed into the back and lay down to wait for morning when the Porterville post office would open.

  They won’t control the mail over here, he told himself. Let Selador get the sample of Jaspers … we’ll soon know what it is.

  He closed his eyes and his lids became like a movie screen for a fantasy—Jenny cringing, crying out, pleading with him. Selador laughing. A gigantic Dasein figure stood bound like Prometheus, the eyes glazed … panting with exertion …

  Dasein’s eyes popped open.

  Waking fantasy!

  He was over the hill—around the bend!

  Hesitantly, he closed his eyes. Only darkness … but there was sound in this darkness—Selador laughing.

  Dasein pressed his hands over his ears. The sound changed to tolling bells, slow cadence … mournful. He opened his eyes. The sound stopped.

  He sat up, pushed himself back into a corner, eyes open. It was cold in the camper and there was a musty smell. He found his sleeping bag, wrapped it around him, sat there with his eyes open. There were cricket sounds outside, faint creakings in the truck’s metal.

  Slowly, sleep crept up on him. His eyelids drooped, popped open.

  How long would it take for the Jaspers effect to wear off? he wondered. Surely, this was drug effect.

  His eyes closed.

  Somewhere in an echoing box, Jenny whispered: “Oh, Gil—I love you. Gil, I love you …”

  He went to sleep with her voice whispering to him.

  7

  Daylight found Dasein staring up at the camper’s metal ceiling with a sense of disorientation. He recognized the ceiling, but couldn’t locate it in space. His head and shoulder throbbed. Ceiling … familiar ceiling.

  A car horn honked. It brought him to the present and awareness. He threw off the twisted folds of his sleeping bag, climbed out into a gray, overcast day. His chin felt rough and stubbly. There was a sour taste in his mouth.

  Two passing schoolboys stared at him, whispering.

  I must look a sight, Dasein thought. He looked down at his clothes. T
hey were twisted and wrinkled as though he had gone swimming in them and then slept in them until they dried. Dasein smiled to himself, thinking that was exactly what had happened.

  He climbed into the cab, turned around and found the main street, drove down it until he saw the Post Office sign over the porch of a general store.

  The postmaster had to finish selling candy to a girl before he could come around behind his caged counter to weigh Dasein’s package and letter. The man was tall, pale with thinning black hair, darting, wary blue eyes. He sniffed once at Dasein, said: “That’ll be eighty-four for the package and five for the letter.”

  Dasein pushed a dollar bill under the cage.

  The man made change, looked once more at the package. “What’s in the package, mister?”

  “Specimens for analysis at our laboratory,” Dasein said.

  “Oh.”

  The man didn’t appear curious about specimens of what. Any return address?” he asked.

  “Dr. Gilbert Dasein, general delivery, Santaroga,” he said.

  “Dasein,” the man said with sudden interest. “Dasein … seems I got a package for a Dasein. Just a minute.”

  He disappeared into the back, returned in a moment with a box about a foot square wrapped neatly and tied with heavy twine. Even from a distance, Dasein recognized Selador’s precise script on the address.

  Selador writing me here? Dasein wondered.

  The air of conspiracy in this gave Dasein the abrupt sensation of being completely transparent to Selador. The man could send a package here and know it would be picked up. Immediately, Dasein told himself this was the simplest thing to figure—given the Santaroga Post Office situation as he’d described it to Selador.

  There remained, though, the feeling he was a pawn and his every move was known to the masters of the game.

  “Let’s see your identification,” the postmaster said.

  Dasein showed it.

  “Sign here,” the man said.

  Dasein signed, took the package. It felt heavy.

  “Funny thing you Santarogans using my Post Office,” the postmaster said. “Something wrong with your own?”